Avatar

[Ran]

Brude,

Yeah. Feels more like a second week than a third week. It's possible it'll snap up the 4th domestic weekend record from Titanic, but I think that will be it for record-breaking weekends for the film. It should finish its run somewhere around $500 million, I'm guessing.

Question is, can it make $1.3 billion overseas? It's just past half way to that mark there. That's what it'll need to match or beat Titanic

[niamh]

It's only England Ran but.........it's unusual I'd say

James Cameron's sci-fi blockbuster Avatar has regained its place at the top of the UK box office. The movie, which stars Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver and Zoe Saldana, fell to second place last week following the release of the Alvin And The Chipmunks sequel. However, Avatar's £5 million gross - a £2 million rise from last week

Also, it only opened in China on Monday. God knows what sort of money it's going to make there.

[red snow]

It's only England Ran but.........it's unusual I'd say

James Cameron's sci-fi blockbuster Avatar has regained its place at the top of the UK box office. The movie, which stars Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver and Zoe Saldana, fell to second place last week following the release of the Alvin And The Chipmunks sequel. However, Avatar's £5 million gross - a £2 million rise from last week

Also, it only opened in China on Monday. God knows what sort of money it's going to make there.

I'm more disturbed by the fact the chipmonk film was number one. Does that mean Sherlock Holmes in the UK only made number 3? Ouch.

[niamh]

Serves Guy Ritchie right if you ask me.

[Krafus]

Saw it yesterday. It was my first 3D movie, and the experience didn't amaze me. I think I would have enjoyed it just as much had it been a 2D movie. I agree with those who said the plot was predictable, but the visuals alone were worth the ticket's price.

[Zoë Sumra]

I'm sure you guys have seen this already, but hey.

[gyp casino]

It's the year 2154 and the technology to heal Jake's legs exist, but he can't afford it. I guess Cameron is pessimistic about health care reform...

The concept of the intelligent planet reminds me of a hypothetical question posed in a psychology paper I read in college. It's a sort of anecdote. The human brain is a collection of billions of interconnected neurons communicating through electrical signals. If one could construct a circuit of copper wire and transistors in the same configuration as the brain, would the circuit be intelligent? There are over a billion people in China. If you could give them all a cell phone and have them each group-dial 100 others in the exact configuration of a human brain, would the collective population of China be an intelligent entity?

[BigFatCoward]

Also, it only opened in China on Monday. God knows what sort of money it's going to make there.

I beleive the current box office record in china is £42,000,000 so it probably wont make a massive difference to the overall total.

[niamh]

Yes of course, silly of me. Their currency is probably not worth much.

It's already the biggest box office first day of all times there though, according to the intarnet. (33 million yuan vs 21 million)

I'd rather see all those numbers translated in worldwide number of tickets sold, comparing it in terms of money isn't very useful (save for the ones cashing in)

[red snow]

Now that people from my lab are returing to work I am amazed at how all of them have seen (or have tickets booked) Avatar. This includes people from France, Germany, China and Portugal and two of them are what i'd call film snobs (the Na'vi subtitles must have won them over). So far none of them have given it a bad review other than comments along the lines of "it won't be winning best screenplay". It surprises me as I thought this film's appeal would mainly be sci-fi and popcorn-movie fans.

[Ran]

Another 60% drop from the previous week, according to Box Office Mojo. If that holds through the weekend, I don't know if it's going to clear the $30 million it needs to take the 4th weekend box office record in the U.S. It may just scrape by, but 5th weekend record and on is about 99.5% safe for Titanic.

I think the film's going to end up around $1.4-$1.6 billion worldwide, short of Titanic's mark but comfortably in second place.

[Maithanet]

Another 60% drop from the previous week, according to Box Office Mojo. If that holds through the weekend, I don't know if it's going to clear the $30 million it needs to take the 4th weekend box office record in the U.S. It may just scrape by, but 5th weekend record and on is about 99.5% safe for Titanic.

But keep in mind that a lot of the drop is just a matter of the calendar. Around Christmas and New Years, lots of people are out of work, with family, looking to get out of the house. It's a very good time to be selling tickets. After New Years, everybody is back and busy and may have spent too much money over the holidays. It's very common for big holiday movies to hit a wall after New Years, and to expect otherwise for Avatar is asking a lot.

I do agree that it probably won't reach Titanic's gross, unless sales at IMAX theaters are incredibly stubborn and sustain it for several more weeks.

[Ran]

Titanic was released at the same time. It showed much steadier business at that stage. I agree that the holidays explains the sharp drop, but it seems unlikely that next week is going to be the same as this week, IMO. Still, suppose it's a possibility.

[Insert Edit]

I did my part by going for the second time last night. Went with a friend, while the first time I saw it solo. The theater was half full, and there was no hint of a lineup.

On a second watching, the 'wow' factor becomes nearly irrelevant. Then you start to notice the flaws in the story more. I think this film will have a lasting legacy, in that it'll be remembered as the film that really kicked off the jump to 3-D. But it won't have nearly the longterm following or cultural significance of Star Wars.

[Ran]

According to Box Office Mojo, it's now the #2 grossing film in the world. Still $700 million shy of Titanic, and it's simply not going to match that. It's $250 million shy of hitting the $1 billion mark in foreign gross -- can it reach that? It'd be only the second film to achieve it, after Titanic of course. Doesn't seem utterly impossible, but it's hard to tell with foreign box office.

[Arakasi]

I still know a decent number of people who want to see it in the theatres who haven't yet because of crowds or just holiday business. I know as well I'm going to see it one more time. So I think it will easily get 300ish of that 700. Just don't know if it will get the other half.

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

So apparently the first cut of Avatar was 4:18 long. Yeah.

Guess that means the chances of a super-duper-extra-long DVD edition are decent.

[Arakasi]

Depends if that first cut was pre effects or post. I'm guessing the effects were the expensive part, and losing that would make it fairly mundane in spots. But then again for home viewing does it matter much. Wonder what got cut.

[Ran]

According to someone who attended Cameron's talk, a lot of the stuff that was cut never got rendered into theatrical-level -- Cameron apparently said it looked like 90's 3D video game tech, sort of a realtime pre-visualization technique.

[Ser Greguh]

It's interesting: Titanic suffered the same 60-70% drops (when compared to the week before) on its own week 2 to week 3 transition, but then settled into a steady-state of $1-2M weekdays and $20-30M weekends. Its 5th weekend was bigger than it's 4th, and I still doubt that Avatar's will be as well.

Avatar's % drops in week 3 are actually slightly less, as a percentage, than Titanic's were, (Titanic dropped 61/62/65 on Mon/Tue/Wed, while Avatar has dropped 58/60/63). Avatar is also still making ~2-2.5x what Titanic did on comparable days of release, so it has more than a little cushion to work with.

Still, in the end I think it will be all about the steady-state that Avatar can achieve. If it's still having $1M weekdays after 6 weeks, Titanic is toast, but that's a very big if.